Recent developments in digital technology have spurred the development and deployment of digital video broadcasting services. The digital video broadcasting services not only broadcast high quality video programming, including high-definition (HD) programs, but also provide the ability to broadcast data including an electronic program guide (EPG). Digital broadcast programs are typically provided by satellite broadcasters, terrestrial broadcasters and cable broadcasters. More recently, digital broadcast programs have also been deployed via the Internet Protocol (IP) by major telecommunication provides.
Video broadcasters have traditionally distributed video broadcasts to viewers using a variety of broadcasting standards, including the analog National Television Standard Committee (NTSC) standard. More recently, with the constant expansion of the number of video broadcast channels, HD video broadcasts and provision of data (including EPG), all of which have placed a premium on bandwidth for transmission, the distribution of video broadcasts has been achieved via digital standards, including the Advanced Technical Systems Committee (ATSC) standard, which use compression techniques to compress the video broadcasts being transmitted. Other digital standards which use compression include the Moving Picture Experts Group H.262 (MPEG-2) standard, the H.264 (MPEG-4) standard and the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) standard. While the foregoing standards provide for in-band transmission of EPG with the transmission of the video programming, typically EPG data has been provided out-of-band from the video programming by third-party aggregators of programming schedules, such as Tribune TV and Gemstar.
Digital video broadcasts are transmitted or distributed from the aforementioned video broadcasters via a variety of distributions systems to an end user's digital set top box (STB) which decodes the digital video signal for display on a video display device (e.g., television). The digital video signal may be received by the STB via a satellite dish, a coaxial cable, a telephone line (including digital subscriber line (DSL)), Ethernet, local and wide area wireless technologies, and the like.
Compression techniques used by the foregoing digital broadcasting standards have evolved significantly since their introduction. However, the video broadcasters have not been able to adapt these digital standards for the content of the digital broadcast programs on a dynamic basis. Dynamic content-based compression can improve end user experience and can also reduce transmission load over video broadcasters' distributions systems.